A rising dislike of Tolkein?

[The Marquis de Leech]

I think the Tolkien-bashers fall into a number of different flavours, most of which have already been mentioned:

(1) The Moviegoers. Such people might find the prose and pacing off-putting, though this isn't necessarily confined to post-film age: Martin has written that when he read LOTR for the first time as a young guy, he started off disappointed at how twee it was (a birthday party? Tom Bombadil? Where's the battle and carnage?).

(2) The Grimdarkers. Tolkien isn't "realistic" or "complex" enough for their tastes. Such people often base their judgements off the films only, or off derivative works, and have certainly never read The Silmarillion.

(3) The Political. Moorcock and Mieville fall into this category: they bash Tolkien because his political viewpoint is different from their own.

(4) The Academics. Tolkien doesn't conform to the standard novel format (especially with characterisation), so he (and fantasy in general) is a lesser genre.

(5) The Jaded. If you have consumed poor quality derivative works, it might be hard to get excited about the original.

(6) The Attention-seekers. Tolkien is the basis of the genre in its current form. What better way to demonstrate your iconoclastic credentials by going after the great Sacred Cow of fantasy literature?

[Darth Richard II]

What category does Richard Morgan fall in?

I'd assume #2.

[Tears of Lys]

I blame it on shorter attention spans. You can see it at work when people say they dislike Shakespeare or Dickens. You've got to make an investment of time for the payoff. Firstly, by learning a different manner of speech; secondly, by understanding the moment in history in which it was written; and thirdly, by cultivating a flexible mind that is open to new and different ways of thinking.

Sometimes you just have to be in the mood too. I've had the experience of reading a book at one point and not liking it much, and then picking it up a few months later and wondering why I wasn't interested the first time.

ETA: As for Tolkien's being a good writer, he certainly didn't adhere to any "rules" of novel writing. He changes style numerous times in LotR - at one point epic prose, at another, low humor, and even travelogue. How this all added up to a work of power and beauty is one of the mysteries of the ages.

[Shryke]

Or, you know, not everyone likes Tolkien.

Some of y'all on this page seem to be ignoring the obvious.

[Darth Richard II]

Or, you know, not everyone likes Tolkien.

Some of y'all on this page seem to be ignoring the obvious.

Shit, I wish people would just say that. Saying you didn't like Tolkien because you just didn't like Tolkien is fine. It's when people have that bizarre need to somehow justify it with "oh well he was a sexist/facist/racist/secret member of hydra" when i start to get..um...more surly than normal.

[Tears of Lys]

Or, you know, not everyone likes Tolkien.

Some of y'all on this page seem to be ignoring the obvious.

We have a word for those people - WRONG.

:P

[The Evil Queen]

LotR was the book the got me to love reading and made me the fantasy fan that I am today, it is by far my favourite book of all time. And if I were to use Senetis hierarchy I am most certainly a Michael/AngryLOTRFan when it comes to the movies! I mean they are good movies, but, aaaaargh, never watch those movies with me, you will hate me.

But I know that readers will have their likes and dislikes, personally I have trouble with first person narrative, even though some of my fave series are in first person, outside of those particular books, I have trouble moving past page one in first person books. So I guess for some readers coming to LotR after other fantasy books, yes the style would be a bit jarring. As I said in another thread, LotR feels like someone is telling you the story, like a voice over, it is difficult to feel like you are part of the story, almost always you are outside looking in. Those people who can't get into it may enjoy the audio versions more, since that is actual voice over telling you the story.

And I agree with everyone who has said that those who saw the movies first would also have some trouble with reading the books. The movies are action, the books have action but don't really fit the action genre.

The only thing that irked me while reading Tolkien were (IMO) the needlessly wordy geographical descriptions which sometimes could be an entire page.

I love the archaic diction and style but can see how that might bother some people.

Anyone who has trouble with Tolkiens descriptives should try reading Cecilia Dart-Thornton, seriously, you will never complain about Tolkien again lol. pity cos her stories are awesome (imo) if you skip the flowering descriptives.

[The Evil Queen]

Sometimes you just have to be in the mood too. I've had the experience of reading a book at one point and not liking it much, and then picking it up a few months later and wondering why I wasn't interested the first time.

I agree with this too, many of my favourites, including McCaffrey and Eddings, I just wasn't in the mood when I first tried them so I didn't like them and gave up on them. A year or so later I tried again and, well, I needed a new bookcase :)

[Lyanna Stark]

I think the Tolkien-bashers fall into a number of different flavours, most of which have already been mentioned:

(1) The Moviegoers. Such people might find the prose and pacing off-putting, though this isn't necessarily confined to post-film age: Martin has written that when he read LOTR for the first time as a young guy, he started off disappointed at how twee it was (a birthday party? Tom Bombadil? Where's the battle and carnage?).

(2) The Grimdarkers. Tolkien isn't "realistic" or "complex" enough for their tastes. Such people often base their judgements off the films only, or off derivative works, and have certainly never read The Silmarillion.

(3) The Political. Moorcock and Mieville fall into this category: they bash Tolkien because his political viewpoint is different from their own.

(4) The Academics. Tolkien doesn't conform to the standard novel format (especially with characterisation), so he (and fantasy in general) is a lesser genre.

(5) The Jaded. If you have consumed poor quality derivative works, it might be hard to get excited about the original.

(6) The Attention-seekers. Tolkien is the basis of the genre in its current form. What better way to demonstrate your iconoclastic credentials by going after the great Sacred Cow of fantasy literature?

This seems like an accurate description.

The Jaded is an interesting group that didn't use to exist in large quantities until we got people who'd read WoT, Shannara, Eddings etc first and then found Tolkien far less easy to digest. Not sure the Attention-seekers really are that many, or am I just reading the wrong stuff? Is it really "cool" to diss Tolkien? I mean Mieville certainly criticised Tolkien, but at the same time, he also professed his admiration for Tolkien's work. On that note, I think Mieville shouldn't be 100% lumped in with "the political" if that category is bashing. Meville's criticism is good criticism, but it's like criticising Lovecraft for being racist: it's obvious that he is but you can still enjoy his writing none the less.

[Jo498]

Very nice analysis in #41. It is not only the movie, unless you take huge epics (like war and peace) as standard, Tolkien starts kind of slow. However, I think that both in LotR as well as in the Hobbit the gradual transitions from a children's story or a moderately paced autumn walking trip to a more dramatic and much darker story add a lot to the tension. There is little action compared to other books, but for me battle and carnage gets boring fairly quickly (major drawback of Abercrombie, IMO).

As far as the style and prose go, I am not a native speaker and started reading Tolkien in English when I was about twenty, but I read a lot of English and I think Tolkien is still better than most others, especially newer authors. It's not Dickens, of course, but IMO it is better than GRRM in the language and style department and leagues above "Painted Man" or Shannara or the RPG-based stuff like Dragonlance (I have to admit that I like some of the Dragonlance characters and plots, but the writing is terribly bad).

Of course it is somewhat old-fashioned, but in LotR it is not exaggerated as in some parts of the Silmarilion or Unfinished Tales etc. (I love those anyway). For really exaggerated pseudo-archaic style, read "The Worm Ouroboros" (I found it quite fascinating, but very probably will not read this one again...)

I have to admit that I find the "realism" objection silly and hypocritical. It is not supposed to be realistic and I think Tolkien does a very good job bringing the cosy, rural, pseudo-19th-century-English world of the Shire together with High Fantasy. Actually, in my view he merges these aspects at least as good as GRRM merges the more historical and the "magic" strains so far, because in ASoIaF Dragons, Others and Magic do not go together all that well. GRRM started out better, IMO, but the "realistic" intrigue/war arcs dominated so strongly that things like Bran's arc, all the prophecies or Dany's surviving the pyre and hatching the dragons etc. do not really fit in all that well anymore. (Whereas I find the clash between high fantasy demigods and nitty-gritty-intrigue-and-carnage in Abercrombie jarring, apparently I am th only one who is bothered.)

As far as realism concerning logistics, fights, battles, travel times etc. go, I think it has been made sufficiently clear that e.g. ASoIaF is not all that realistic, if taken seriously (and I bet it is still better than most others)

I have not read all that much newer fantasy and I do like ASoIaF (and also Gaiman and some others), but Tolkien is still something very special. The evocation of a very old and detailed world/culture, the pervasive melancholy and of course many memorable scenes I do not find elsewhere.

The political and women's issues are a can of worms, of course. Tolkien rejected an obvious political interpretation (like mapping to the war against the Axis powers or the cold war) quite clearly, but there is no denying that LotR is clearly anti-modernist in many respects. (I do not share the broader view, but cannot deny sympathy with JRRT's rejection with industrialism). Eowyn may be a minor character, but the confrontation with the Witch-King is one of my favorite Scenes (and I find her more memorable and interesting than, say, Faramir). In the First Age narratives there are more strong female characters, all above Luthien.

Frankly, I find that too much PC/modern gender roles makes many fantasy worlds often highly unattractive and implausible. In ASoIaF the "non-traditional" female characters, especially Dany and Arya are also the least realistic, plot-armored (I have not quarrel with that, Arya may still be my favorite). But better (almost) no female lead characters as in Tolkien than tired clichees like Leesha(sp?) in "Painted Man". Abercrombie can be fun to read for a while, but his world does not even start to evoke any fantasy-world emotions for me. It is so thoroughly modern, often literally like a film script of our days (casual sex for anyone, lots of gore and the action sequences for the "Eaters" are from the Matrix with Neo snatching bullets from the air)

[Veltigar]

I can't stand the archaic writing style of LOTR. The fact that the movies were pretty different didn't help either (like all the things I loved about the movies was strangely drab or glossed over in the novels. On the plus side, what I hated about the movies also seemed drab in the novels). It's strange really since I love the other things of Tolkien that I have read. The Hobbit is one of the best childrens books out there (featuring the only hobbit I don't hate with a passion), the Silmarillion is really interesting (truth be told I'd much rather read that than those boring LoTR books) and the extended Children of Hurin tale is one of my absolute favorite reads.

[Jo498]

In which respects do you find the style of LotR archaic, if the more archaic style of Sil etc. doesnt bother you?

[The Marquis de Leech]

For really exaggerated pseudo-archaic style, read "The Worm Ouroboros" (I found it quite fascinating, but very probably will not read this one again...)

I think the ultimate in pseudo-archaic fantasy writing is William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land (or at least pseudo-archaic done badly). For reasons only known to Hodgson, in 1912 he decided to write what might be termed a sort of post-apocalyptic epic in mangled seventeenth century English. It's perhaps the best setting ever (Earth after the death of the Sun) but the style...

[dornishscorpion]

Well since the Hobbit is a children's story, I think thats to be expected. Imo it has the perfect light hearted tone, excitement and entertainment value to keep children interested, while also getting across some valuable lessons. I certainly prefer it over many children's books released while I was growing up anyway.

I personally love Tolkein, but my friends I tried to get to read it never got.past the first few chapters. Their reasons were they prefer getting the story quickly as with the films etc.

Interesting to note wrt to the films; I was reading an article the other day that apparently there is a petition to have Thorin survive in the Hobbit film. Meh.

ETA: I also think its a lot to do with the fantasy that exists now. There seems to be a belief that rape, explicit violence, sex and gore and necessary for a good.novel in many cases, and as LotR lacks these things some find it "dull"

this is ecactly what hapened to me i managed to read several chapters but moved on to another book

[red snow]

Have to admit I haven't read any Tolkien outside of Hobbit/LOTR which I guess means I'm not that big a fan of his writing. Usually with authors I really like, I'll seek out as much material by them as possible. My gut reaction to his extended middle earth works are that they a) aren't actually by him and b) are probably like reading history text books. I may be totally wrong on this but that's the impression i get,

I would have definitely given his "king Arthur" a try if he had finished it though.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Have to admit I haven't read any Tolkien outside of Hobbit/LOTR which I guess means I'm not that big a fan of his writing. Usually with authors I really like, I'll seek out as much material by them as possible. My gut reaction to his extended middle earth works are that they a) aren't actually by him and B) are probably like reading history text books. I may be totally wrong on this but that's the impression i get,

I would have definitely given his "king Arthur" a try if he had finished it though.

Don't worry, they're his (or more accurately, they're his decades of unpublished drafts). Christopher Tolkien just provides the introductions, commentaries, and footnotes. I won'd deny the history textbook element though.

[Jo498]

I think the ultimate in pseudo-archaic fantasy writing is William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land (or at least pseudo-archaic done badly). For reasons only known to Hodgson, in 1912 he decided to write what might be termed a sort of post-apocalyptic epic in mangled seventeenth century English. It's perhaps the best setting ever (Earth after the death of the Sun) but the style...

Thanks for the lead, I actually do have Hodgson on my shelf, but have not read the "Night Land" as I was not overly fond of the first shorter novel in this fat volume: The boats of the Glen Carrig. This one I remember as quite similar to Blackwood (The willows, and also others), but weaker and although I do have some fondness for this stuff, I cannot take it in large doses. (One of the best things about Blackwood and Lovecraft is that these are usually shorter stories...)

[LordStoneheart]

Could people just be getting stupider?

[Jo498]

Could people just be getting stupider?

If the spelling and grammar in online discussions are any indication this seems very likely...

But I think more important reasons are that many younger people are so used to a narrative style close to movies or at least filled with action, gore and sex, that Tolkien will feel slow and quaint to them.

[HexMachina]

Could people just be getting stupider?

Well when your teacher hands you Biff and Chip and the Magic Key at age 8, a 20 page book with pictures, while you are reading the Hobbit, Chronicles of Narnia and various other, much longer books at home...yes. Reading as a child in infant school was diabolical imo. I used to bring my own books in